


Carry On My Wayward Son

by Miss_Psychotic



Category: Bring Me The Horizon
Genre: Death, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Mild Language, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-25
Updated: 2012-05-25
Packaged: 2017-11-06 00:02:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,135
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/412510
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Miss_Psychotic/pseuds/Miss_Psychotic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>a simple song fic. best to have Kansas' Carry On My Wayward Son on while reading this.</p>
    </blockquote>





	Carry On My Wayward Son

**Author's Note:**

> a simple song fic. best to have Kansas' Carry On My Wayward Son on while reading this.

_“Carry on my wayward son_

_There'll be peace when you are done_

_Lay your weary head to rest_

_Don't you cry no more.”_

 

 

“Emma, Em, can yeh hear meh?”

 

I groaned, trying to lift my heavy eyelids. They refused to budge.

 

“Please Em, if yeh can ‘ear meh, wake up.”

 

I’ve never heard him sound so desperate before. Tom’s normally bright and happy demeanor could make even the worst of them smile. He was a glowing ball of positive energy. At least that’s how I viewed him.

 

I finally won the battle and opened my eyes. Sleep was hard to come by for me and Tom, with his condition and all, made for a difficult situation.

 

But I love him, with all of my heart and I would do anything for him.

 

“What is it Tommy?” I asked him softly, my Australian accent merging with the constant British I hear everyday.

 

“I had eh bad dream,” he replied clinging onto me.

 

“Aww, it’s okay, I’m here now, nothing can harm you,” I promised holding him against me.

 

“I love yeh,” Tom said softly, nuzzling his face into the crook of my neck.

 

“I love you too,” I replied.

 

“You should go back to sleep,”

 

“Can’t,” he replied with wide blue eyes. He looked like a small fragile child.

 

“Tommy, you need to sleep, otherwise you won’t be strong enough,” I whispered softly.

 

“Okay,” he mumbled and lay back down.

 

“You want me to sing to you Tommy?” I asked him with a grin.

 

Tom just smiled and nodded.

 

“What song?” I asked him.

 

“Kansas!” he replied.

 

“Okay,” I replied before singing him softly to sleep.

 

 

***

 

 

“How’s he doing?” Dr Evans asked me.

 

“The nightmares are getting worse, same with the ticks. I’ve caught him…” I stopped talking as the tears washed over me.

 

“He talks to himself, he thinks…” I sobbed a little.

 

“He thinks Oli’s still here, has conversations with thin air thinking it’s his brother,” I wiped my eyes with a tissue.

 

“How often is this?” the Doctor asked me.

 

“Four times in the last two weeks, he’s been talking in his sleep too,” I added quietly.

 

“What does he say?”

 

“Not much, he calls out my name or Oli’s,” I replied.

 

Dr Evans pondered this information after he had written it down.

 

“What about the physical symptoms?” he asked me.

 

“The nosebleeds and ear bleeds are growing more frequent, the vomiting is after every meal, his hair is beginning to thin and he’s still urinating blood,” I told him solemnly.

 

“The diets not working at all?”

 

I shook my head no and burst into another wave of tears.

 

Dr Evans offered me some more tissues, which I gratefully took.

 

“There’s one thing left we can try, it’s harsher than the other medications, Tom might have to be hospitalized, but it could be his only cure.”

 

I looked over to the corner where Tom was sitting and fiddling with his camera, he still loved to take pictures.

 

He looked like a six year old trapped in a 24 year olds body.

 

He looked so carefree, apart from the scabs on his skin where he had had a panic attack and scratched at his arms to ‘let the bugs out’ his skin was no longer a pretty pale but a sickly white, and his hair was thinner in places it looked like he got attacked with a hair trimmer by a drunk.

 

“I don’t know,” I said, unsure.

 

“I don’t think his body could take it,”

 

“Life expectancy with no medication is three, maybe four months, this current treatment, possibly a year and the new treatment could be hospitalization for a month and then maybe five or six years normal life after that.”

 

I sighed deeply and fingered the wedding band on my left hand, twisting it slowly before looking over to Tom.

 

He was laying on his side, twitching, blood gushing from his nose.

 

“TOM!”

 

I ran to him as fast as possible, rolling him onto his back and then sitting him up.

 

“Tom, breathe sweetie, breathe!” I told him, pressing tissues to his nose and rubbing his back.

 

The tick died down and Tom sat there in my arms crying and holding the tissue to his nose.

 

“I’m sick of this,” He muttered quietly.

 

“What was that, sweetie?” I asked him softly.

 

“I’m so sick of this, I just want it to stop,” he cried harder.

 

“I want us back how we were, I want Oli,” he sobbed, clenching onto my shirt and sobbing harder than ever.

 

“We can go visit him,” I offered.

 

“We can pick up some flowers and you can put them on his stone and then we can get ice-cream,” I offered with a forced smile.

 

“Ice-cream?” Tom sniffled.

 

“Yup, any flavor you want,” I hated myself for stooping this low.

 

“Okay,” Tom nodded.

 

“Ready to go?” I asked him.

 

He just nodded in reply.

 

“Mrs Sykes,” Dr Evans called to me.

 

“Yes?”

 

He handed me a pill bottle with Tom’s name on it. It had many bright coloured warning stickers on it.

 

“Just in case,” He said grimly.

 

I nodded, pocketing the bottle and leading Tom to the car.

 

***

 

 

“An’ then weh got ice-cream, bu’ seeing Olleh was the best!” Tom told his father animatedly as they sat in our lounge.

 

I sat at the kitchen table, listening through the open door. My back straight my hands together, fingers interlocked and resting on the table in front of me.

 

Tears ran down my red cheeks, eyes swollen and bottom lip quivering.

 

I miss my Tom. I miss goofing around, playing X-box and making sexual wagers over games.

 

I miss going to Oli’s flat each and every Friday to do his washing and wash his dishes and clean up while he and Tom talked about some brotherly in-joke and other random things.

 

I miss the three of us squishing onto Oli’s couch, putting on a horror movie, eating loads too much junk food, getting stomach aches and falling asleep all over each other, drooling like mad and snoring.

 

I missed Oli, but he was dead. I missed Tom even more, and he’s just in the next room.

 

The day I received the call everything changed.

 

_“Mrs Sykes?”_

_“Speaking,” I replied._

_“Hi it’s Dr Evan’s, Tom’s doctor.”_

_“Yes?”_

_“I’ve got the results of Tom’s brain scan, I think you both should come in and see me,”_

_“Of course,” I replied, panicked._

_“We’ll be in sometime this week,” I told him._

 

We found out later that week that Tom had cancer, it was eating away at the part of his brain that controls cognitive development, and pretty much he was losing his mentality slowly.

 

Oli took it just as hard as Tom and I did.

 

I’d never seen him so low, not even after the accident in Norway and the bus rolled and Lee and Matty N we’re in hospital fighting for their lives.

 

They made a full recovery but even sitting outside their rooms, not knowing if they’d wake up, he still wasn’t as depressed as he was when he found out Tom was dying.

 

It didn’t take long though…

 

Oli could never handle things like this well, he turned to booze, took him four months before he got so drunk even after they pumped his stomach the damage was done and his liver and kidneys failed.

 

He died lying on his couch, the couch we’d spent countless nights squished on.

 

Tom and Oli had always had a close bond, closer than most brothers I like to think. And that’s why Tom started going fuzzy around the edges.

 

I’d come home or walk into a room and Tom would be sitting there, relaxing, having a great conversation with himself, thinking Oli was there with him, and who knows, maybe he was and I’m too blind to see him.

 

 

I dug my nails into my hands and chocked back a sob. I had to be strong for Tom, I had to show him it was going to be okay and that he needed his strength to win this battle.

 

A battle that cannot be won.

 

“Emma?” Carol called softly.

 

I looked up to her, fresh tears sliding down my cheeks.

 

“I can’t do it,” I sobbed before reaching out and clinging to her as the grief took hold, tears, sobs and all my heartache poured out of me as my mother in law held me together.

 

“I can’t do it anymore!” my words were hardly distinguishable through my crying.

 

“I can’t be strong for him, it’s killing me too!” I slid down in Carol’s arms until we were huddled on the floor, me crying and Carol holding me, stroking my hair, telling me everything would be okay.

 

***

 

“Emma, Emma, wake up,”

 

“What it is Tommy?” I asked him slightly panicked.

 

“Are you bleeding, does it hurt?” I asked him.

 

“No, no shh!” he hugged me and soothed me for once.

 

“No, I just wanted teh hold yeh like I used ta,”

 

I felt a tear run down my cheek.

 

“I love yeh,” He whispered.

 

“Love you too,”

 

“I know ‘m not lucid like this all tha time, and tha’ ‘m not as mature, but I still love yeh an’ I wanna spend the time ‘m normal how we should spend our time,” he whispered.

 

“How’s that?”

 

“In love an’ care free,” he replied kissing me softly.

 

“Oh Tom,” I clung to him as he did me both of us knowing this could very well be the last time we get to be together in this way.

 

We didn’t rush, we didn’t hurry, we took our time, exploring each other’s bodies again.

 

After Tom held me as I fell asleep, not the other way around and I felt a bittersweet smile tug at my lips. As happy as I am right now, I’ll never have this again.

 

***

 

“Shh it’s okay Hun, get it all out,” I encouraged.

 

Tom was ghostly white, his skin damp with sweat as he knelt over the toilet.

 

Another wave of vomit hit him and rattled his tiny frame.

 

He weighed barely anything anymore, he couldn’t keep food down, his hair was so thin and he had massive bald spots.

 

“How can yeh love me like this?” he panted.

 

I picked up his left hand with my own left hand and interlaced our fingers so our rings touched.

 

“This is why, because I love you and I vowed to stick by you in sickness and in health,”

 

 Tom attempted to smile but the next wave got him first.

 

He turned his head and heaved.

 

I rubbed his back soothingly.

 

It was only going to get worse.

 

***

 

“How’s he doing Doc?” I asked as Doctor Evans entered the room.

 

He looked at the chart on the end of Tom’s bed.

 

“Doesn’t look good I’m afraid,” he told me.

 

I felt my heart stop.

 

“What do you mean?” I stuttered back to him.

 

“I think it’s time,” Evans replied.

 

“No!” I gasped shaking my head from side to side.

 

“NO! you can’t do this! He’ll get better, he will!” I shouted.

 

Ian held me in a fatherly hug as Carol sat quiet in her chair.

 

She’d have to bury her second and last child only within a year of her first.

 

We were going to have to bury my husband next to my best friend.

 

***

 

 

“Emma,”

 

“What is it Tommy, I’m here,” I said grabbing his hand.

 

His lips were dry and cracked, his voice hoarse. He was bald by now and his body literally a stick.

 

“’m not going teh get bettah,” he told me.

 

“Yeah you are,” I smiled.

 

“You’re going to get better and we can have that baby you always wanted,” I told him.

 

Tom shook his head no.

 

“’m not, I need yeh to do meh a favor, love,”

 

“Anything,” and I meant it.

 

“I don’ wan’ it teh win. I wan’ the go my own way,” he told me, staring deep into my eyes.

 

My eyes widened in shock, my heart skipped a beat.

 

“Tom,” I breathed.

 

“Please,” he begged me.

 

“I wanna see Olleh,”

 

Fresh tears tickled my face.

 

“Okay,” I nodded.

 

I looked at the machine keeping my husband alive.

 

“Emma,”

 

I looked at him.

 

“Sing for meh?” he asked.

 

I nodded as tears flowed continuously.

 

“Carry on my wayward son.”

 

I walked over to the machine.

 

“There'll be peace when… when you are done.”

 

My voice cracked halfway though the lyrics as I looked for the switch and flicked it.

 

“Lay your weary head to rest,”

 

I walked back to his side, taking his hand and stroking his forehead.

 

Tom’s breathing stopped and the heart monitor flat-lined, he had a smile on his face.

 

“Don't you cry no more.”

 

 

fin

 


End file.
